Standard Admission

Admission to the undergraduate program of the Foster School of Business is competitive, but we encourage all who meet the minimum application requirements to apply. We accept applications for autumn and winter quarters. Students admitted for autumn quarter have the option to enroll for summer quarter.

Each year, approximately 30-50% of applicants—between 550 and 650—are admitted. For all applicants, index scores are created from three admissions factors, which are standardized, then assigned the following weights.

Combined GPA (40%)

Pre-application GPA (25%)

Writing Skills Assessment (35%)

Beyond this index, consideration is given to such factors as cultural experiences, significantly higher recent grades, exceptional extracurricular activities or leadership experience and the effect of personal disadvantage on earlier education. We review all applicants together (current and returning UW, transfer, international transfer, and running start) and only use current standing for post-admission demographic data.

Foster Application Deadline*

Enrollment Quarter

April 5

Summer or autumn quarter

October 5

Winter quarter

*All applicants, other than current UW students, must submit two applications: one to Foster and one the UW Office of Admissions. Please check with UW Admissions for application deadlines and requirements.

Current/Returning UW Applications

Current UW Seattle student applicants: Current UW Seattle students and those admitted to UW Seattle for the quarter during which the Foster School application deadline falls, need to complete and submit only a Foster School application (see below for application details).

Current UW Bothell or UW Tacoma student applicants: Please see the “Transfer” tab.

Returning UW Seattle student applicants: Returning students must complete and file a UW Returning Student Application as well as a Foster School application (see below for application details).

Timelines and Deadlines

Application Timeline: April 5 deadline (summer/autumn start)
Below is the application timeline for students who want to enroll in the Foster School in summer or autumn quarter.

If you are applying for a need-based business scholarship, you must submit a FAFSA application. For priority consideration, your FAFSA should be sent by February 15 and must be dated as received by the federal processor by February 28.

March

Attend an application workshop. Application workshops present detailed information about the application process, including the Writing Skills Assessment, to students who plan to apply to the Foster School of Business.

Majority of UW applicants will receive electronic decision notifications about the status of their Foster School applications just before Priority I Junior registration. We will contact you through your UW Email account. Please make sure emails from any bizinfo@uw.edu account do not go to junk mail.

Application Timeline: October 5 deadline (winter quarter start)
Below is the application timeline for students who want to enroll in the Foster School in winter quarter.

When

What and Where

July

Register for the Writing Skills Assessment, a required part of the UW Foster application. Assessment sessions begin in September.

September

Application workshops present detailed information about the application process, including the Writing Skills Assessment, to students who plan to apply to the Foster School of Business. Schedule can be found on the School’s website.

Majority of UW applicants will receive electronic decision notifications about the status of their Foster School applications just before Priority I Junior registration. We will contact you through your UW Email account. Please make sure emails from any bizinfo@uw.edu account do not go to junk mail.

Application Requirements

Minimum Academic Requirements
To be eligible to apply to the Foster School of Business, a student must, at the time of application, have a total of at least 60 college credits from UW and/or other accredited colleges and universities. Students must also have a minimum 2.5 cumulative GPA for:

all college credits, including transfer credits

all business course credits, including transfer credits

all UW credits

all UW business course credits

We only count credits from non-UW institutions that are transferable to UW. The Foster School is not currently accepting post-baccalaureate applications.

Completion Deadlines for Prerequisite Courses
The chart below presents a quick picture of the courses required before application and, if admitted, those required before entering the program. Course numbers are for courses offered at UW Seattle, but equivalents will be considered.

Pre-application courses must be completed by the application deadline (April 5 for autumn/summer or October 5 for winter); pre-admission courses must be completed by the last day of spring quarter for autumn admission and by the last day of the autumn quarter for winter admission.

We will accept any UW designated “C” course. The UW does not accept AP credit to satisfy the English Composition requirement, even if your transfer institution did.

If transferring from a college where the fundamentals of accounting are taught in a 3-part series, you must complete the first two courses before the application deadline and the third course by the pre-admission deadline.

Applicants may take either micro- or macroeconomics before applying, but they must complete both by the pre-admission deadline.

If you attend a school where an equivalent course is not taught, contact our office for advice.

We will also accept STAT 311 or any statistics course with a minimum prerequisite of pre-Calculus. Note: STAT 220 no longer accepted for admission unless course was completed prior to winter 2018.

Credit Restrictions and UW Residence Requirement

A transfer student is allowed a maximum of 90 transferable community college credit hours toward the 180 credits needed for the UW bachelor’s degree. Up to 90 credit hours of correspondence or other extension coursework may also apply to the bachelor’s degree.

However, every student must complete 45 of the final 60 credit hours in residence at the UW. To meet the upper-division requirement for a BABA, a student must complete six of the nine upper-division core classes (including a capstone course), and 40 of the 53 required upper-division business credit hours at UW Seattle.

Students who have taken more than three of the nine upper-division core business courses at another institution, including UW Bothell and UW Tacoma, are generally not admitted to the UW Foster School of Business. Contact a business adviser if you have questions.

Writing Skills Assessment (WSA)
All applicants to the Foster School must take the Writing Skills Assessment. In the assessment session, students are given 90 minutes to plan and write two essays. One essay is based on a short workplace scenario (the persuasion task) and one is based on an assertion (the position task).

Fill out your degree plan and return it by the application deadline to the Undergraduate Programs Office in 202 Dempsey Hall. At this time it is not possible to upload it via the online application.

For those planning on a double degree, you must have your degree plan signed by the departmental adviser in the second major. The signature from the Foster School of Business adviser is not required.

Online Application (Apply Here)

Before you Start
The online application will go live at least two months prior to the application deadline. Here are some things you will need to think about before you start completing the application:

New for Winter 2016. All access to the online application will require UW NetID authentication. Transfer Students: you will be issued UW NetIDs upon completion of your UW Admissions application (it may take as many as two weeks after the UW Admissionsdeadline. Please be sure to read through this page to make sure you have all the required materials prior to the application deadline because you will only have two weeks to access the online application).
*Make sure bizinfo@uw.edu will not get sent to junkmail. All communication will occur via the UW email system. Notifications that you are missing materials or that decisions have been made will be sent to your UW email account, telling you to log back into the online application.

Be aware of the time. The application is due by 11:59 p.m. on April 5 (for summer/autumn start) or October 5 (for winter start). We will not accept applications sent at midnight or later; the system will completely shut you out at exactly 11:59 p.m. Do not wait until the last minute to begin the application. If any application issues arise, you will want to be able to discuss them with someone from the Undergraduate Programs Office.

Have unofficial transcripts ready. The online application will require that you submit PDF copies of your unofficial transcripts from all collegiate institutions you have attended. In most cases, the easiest way to access a PDF version is to print to PDF. In some cases, you may need to get hard copies and scan them as a PDF. This may take extra time. So again, don’t wait until the last minute. Transfer Students: Please wait to submit your transcripts until grades for winter (for April 5 deadline) or spring/ summer (for October 5 deadline) are posted, unless grades post after the deadline.

Think about your personal statement. You only have 1,000 words to address four areas: Hardship, Diversity and Cultural Awareness, Leadership, and Familial Educational Background. The personal statement is your chance to tell us something transcripts and Writing Skills Assessment scores can’t tell us. This is the place on the application to call attention to the things that have impacted your life and your educational journey. Don’t tell us how much you want to be a Foster student; we know you want it. You wouldn’t be applying if you didn’t.

What the Application Looks Like
The online application is divided into the following sections:

Pre-Application Courses. Tell us what you took and your grades for financial accounting, micro or macro economics, calculus, and English composition. See “Application Requirements” above for a list of all courses.

Additional Prerequisites. Let us know what pre-admission courses (managerial accounting, micro or macro economics, introduction to law, and statistics) you have completed or are currently enrolled in. See “Application Requirements” above for a list of all courses.

Collegiate Institutions Attended. You will have to list all colleges/universities attended, including the UW, with the most recent listed first.

Writing Skills Assessment. All you have to do is list the location, date, and whether you’ve taken the WSA previously. We’ll match the rest.

Personal Statement. Your personal statement is an important part of your application for admission. It provides you the opportunity to discuss aspects of your life that may not be apparent from information provided on your application, transcripts or the Writing Skills Assessment. You’ll have four boxes and space for 1,000 total words and will be asked to write about the following topics:

Describe any personal or economic hardships or barriers and explain how they directly affected your ability to be successful in college, as reflected in your transcript. As hardships may occur throughout your life, be specific about when you encountered these hardships and how long they lasted.

In the context of your life experience, describe your understanding of cultural differences and how this awareness was acquired. Talk about how your experiences influenced the person you are and what you will bring to the Foster School community (i.e. classroom, extracurricular, future career, etc.). You define what “experience” means to you; if it is important to you, it is important to share.

Describe 1-2 experiences that demonstrate leadership or initiative in a group or organization. Please do not use examples from high school unless you have completed high school within the past 18 months. Examples could be taken from: employment, community service, student organizations, or similar situations. Explain what you learned about yourself through the experience(s).

How has the educational background of your parents/legal guardians influenced your own education, especially your decision to go to college? What kind of support did you receive in making and pursuing this decision? Please tell us if you are among the first generation in your family to go to college.

Degree Plan (current UW Seattle students only).
All current UW Seattle students applying to the Foster School who meet one or more of the following criteria must submit a degree plan along with the application:

You are applying with 150 or more credits in-progress or completed, or you have completed 7 or more quarters at UW.
For those planning on a double degree, you must have your degree plan signed by the departmental adviser in the second major.

For those planning on a double degree or CISB, you must have your degree plan signed by the departmental adviser in the second major.

Fill out your degree plan and return it by the application deadline to the Undergraduate Programs Office. At this time it is not possible to upload it via the online application.

Transcripts. Here is where you’ll be uploading PDFs. You will not be able to submit your application if there is a collegiate institution listed that does not have a matching transcript. Keep the following in mind:

You must submit a separate transcript from each college level institution, even if you took college-level courses in high school or if the courses appear on your UW transcript.

If you have had grade changes, they must be reflected on the transcripts you submit with your application. We will not accept grade changes after the application deadline.

In order for transfer credits to be added to your UW record, you must also request official transcripts be sent to the Office of Admissions.

Convert letter grades to numeric grades using the following chart:

B+

3.3

C+

2.3

D+

1.3

A

4

B

3.0

C

2.0

D

1.0

A-

3.7

B-

2.7

C-

1.7

D-

0.7

Submit and Verify. We ask you to verify that everything you’ve submitted is accurate and honest.

Transfer

Transfer student applicants: If you have never attended UW as a matriculated student, you must submit two applications—one to the University of Washington and one to the Foster School (see below for application details).

has never attended UW Seattle or has attended UW Seattle only as a non-matriculated undergraduate,

has not been accepted to UW Seattle for the quarter during which the UW Foster School application deadline falls, and

has a total of at least 60 transferable college credits completed by the Foster application deadline.

Admission to the Foster School is contingent upon admission to the UW, although you may apply to the University and the Foster School simultaneously. UW Admissions operates on a different timeline; deadline dates differ depending on your application status. Don’t miss a deadline.

Timelines and Deadlines

Application Timeline: April 5 deadline (summer/autumn start)
Below is the application timeline for students who want to enroll in the Foster School in summer or autumn quarter.

When

What and Where

January

Register for the Writing Skills Assessment, a required part of the UW Foster application. Assessment sessions begin in January.If you have not already applied to UW Seattle, begin the application process by submitting a UW application and all supporting documents to the UW Office of Admissions. See UW Office of Admissions’ website for transfer students. Foster Business scholarship applications will become available.

FEBRUARY 15

UW application deadline for all transfer students for summer or autumn. See UW Office of Admissions’ websites for transfer students for more information.Remember to take an English proficiency exam in time for the UW to receive your scores by the application deadline. Contact UW Office of Admissions for deadlines or check the International Applicants’ website for details.If you are applying for a need-based business scholarship, you must submit a FAFSA application. For priority consideration, your FAFSA should be sent by February 15 and must be dated as received by the federal processor by February 28.

March

Attend an application workshop. Application workshops present detailed information about the application process, including the Writing Skills Assessment, to students who plan to apply to the Foster School of Business.Get UW NetID assigned from UW Admissions and begin online application to Foster

Transfer applicants will receive electronic decision notifications about the status of their Foster School applications after UW Admissions notifications go out. We will contact you through your UW Email account. Please make sure emails from any bizinfo@uw.edu account do not go to junk mail.

Application Timeline: October 5 deadline (winter quarter start)
Below is the application timeline for students who want to enroll in the Foster School in winter quarter.

When

What and Where

July

Register for the Writing Skills Assessment, a required part of the UW Foster application. Assessment sessions begin in September.

August

If you have not already applied to UW Seattle, begin the application process by submitting a UW application and all supporting documents to the UW Office of Admissions. See UW Office of Admissions’ websites for transfer students.

SEPTEMBER 1

UW application deadline for all new transfer students for winter quarter. See UW Office of Admissions’ website for transfer students.

September

Attend a workshop. Application workshops present detailed information about the application process, including the Writing Skills Assessment, to students who plan to apply to the Foster School of Business. Schedule can be found on the School’s website. Get UW NetID assigned from UW Admissions and begin online application to Foster.

Transfer applicants will receive electronic decision notifications about the status of their Foster School applications after UW Admissions notifications go out. We will contact you through your UW Email account. Please make sure emails from any bizinfo@uw.edu account do not go to junk mail.

Application requirements

Minimum Academic Requirements

To be eligible to apply to the Foster School of Business, a student must, at the time of application, have a total of at least 60 college credits from UW and/or other accredited colleges and universities. Students must also have a minimum 2.5 cumulative GPA for:

all college credits, including transfer credits

all business course credits, including transfer credits

all UW credits

all UW business course credits

We only count credits from non-UW institutions that are transferable to UW. The Foster School is not currently accepting post-baccalaureate applications.

Completion Deadlines for Prerequisite Courses

The chart below presents a quick picture of the courses required before application and, if admitted, those required before entering the program. Course numbers are for courses offered at UW Seattle, but equivalents will be considered.

Pre-application courses must be completed by the application deadline (April 5 for autumn/summer or October 5 for winter); pre-admission courses must be completed by the last day of spring quarter for autumn admission and by the last day of the autumn quarter for winter admission.

We will accept any UW designated “C” course. The UW does not accept AP credit to satisfy the English Composition requirement, even if your transfer institution did.

If transferring from a college where the fundamentals of accounting are taught in a 3-part series, you must complete the first two courses before the application deadline and the third course by the pre-admission deadline.

Applicants may take either micro- or macroeconomics before applying, but they must complete both by the pre-admission deadline.

If you attend a school where an equivalent course is not taught, contact our office for advice.

We will also accept STAT 311 or any statistics course with a minimum prerequisite of pre-Calculus. Note: STAT 220 no longer accepted for admission unless course was completed prior to winter 2018.

Transfer applicants: Courses taught at the freshman and sophomore levels at other colleges usually cannot be used to satisfy the School’s upper-division business requirements for graduation.

The UW Foster School of Business honors the Associate Degree Agreement for those students who have an approved associate degree from a Washington community college.

Credit Restrictions and UW Residence Requirement
A transfer student is allowed a maximum of 90 transferable community college credit hours toward the 180 credits needed for the UW bachelor’s degree. Up to 90 credit hours of correspondence or other extension coursework may also apply to the bachelor’s degree.

However, every student must complete 45 of the final 60 credit hours in residence at the UW. To meet the upper-division requirement for a BABA, a student must complete six of the nine upper-division core classes (including a capstone course), and 40 of the 53 required upper-division business credit hours at UW Seattle.

Students who have taken more than three of the nine upper-division core business courses at another institution, including UW Bothell and UW Tacoma, are generally not admitted to the UW Foster School of Business. Contact a business adviserif you have questions.

Writing Skills Assessment (WSA)
All applicants to the Foster School must take the Writing Skills Assessment. In the assessment session, students are given 90 minutes to plan and write two essays. One essay is based on a short workplace scenario (the persuasion task) and one is based on an assertion (the position task).

Before you Start
The online application will go live at least two months prior to the application deadline. Here are some things you will need to think about before you start completing the application:

New for Winter 2016. All access to the online application will require UW NetID authentication. Transfer Students: you will be issued UW NetIDs upon completion of your UW Admissions application (it may take as many as two weeks after the UW Admissionsdeadline. Please be sure to read through this page to make sure you have all the required materials prior to the application deadline because you will only have two weeks to access the online application).
*Make sure bizinfo@uw.edu will not get sent to junkmail. All communication will occur via the UW email system. Notifications that you are missing materials or that decisions have been made will be sent to your UW email account, telling you to log back into the online application.

Be aware of the time. The application is due by 11:59 p.m. on April 5 (for summer/autumn start) or October 5 (for winter start). We will not accept applications sent at midnight or later; the system will completely shut you out at exactly 11:59 p.m. Do not wait until the last minute to begin the application. If any application issues arise, you will want to be able to discuss them with someone from the Undergraduate Programs Office.

Have unofficial transcripts ready. The online application will require that you submit PDF copies of your unofficial transcripts from all collegiate institutions you have attended. In most cases, the easiest way to access a PDF version is to print to PDF. In some cases, you may need to get hard copies and scan them as a PDF. This may take extra time. So again, don’t wait until the last minute. Transfer Students: Please wait to submit your transcripts until grades for winter (for April 5 deadline) or spring/ summer (for October 5 deadline) are posted, unless grades post after the deadline.

Think about your personal statement. You only have 1,000 words to address four areas: Hardship, Diversity and Cultural Awareness, Leadership, and Familial Educational Background. The personal statement is your chance to tell us something transcripts and Writing Skills Assessment scores can’t tell us. This is the place on the application to call attention to the things that have impacted your life and your educational journey. Don’t tell us how much you want to be a Foster student; we know you want it. You wouldn’t be applying if you didn’t.

What the Application Looks Like
The online application is divided into the following sections:

Pre-Application Courses. Tell us what you took and your grades for financial accounting, micro or macro economics, calculus, and English composition. See “Application Requirements” above for a list of all courses.

Additional Prerequisites. Let us know what pre-admission courses (managerial accounting, micro or macro economics, introduction to law, and statistics) you have completed or are currently enrolled in. See “Application Requirements” above for a list of all courses.

Collegiate Institutions Attended. You will have to list all colleges/universities attended, including the UW, with the most recent listed first.

Writing Skills Assessment. All you have to do is list the location, date, and whether you’ve taken the WSA previously. We’ll match the rest.

Personal Statement. Your personal statement is an important part of your application for admission. It provides you the opportunity to discuss aspects of your life that may not be apparent from information provided on your application, transcripts or the Writing Skills Assessment. You’ll have four boxes and space for 1,000 total words and will be asked to write about the following topics:

Describe any personal or economic hardships or barriers and explain how they directly affected your ability to be successful in college, as reflected in your transcript. As hardships may occur throughout your life, be specific about when you encountered these hardships and how long they lasted.

In the context of your life experience, describe your understanding of cultural differences and how this awareness was acquired. Talk about how your experiences influenced the person you are and what you will bring to the Foster School community (i.e. classroom, extracurricular, future career, etc.). You define what “experience” means to you; if it is important to you, it is important to share.

Describe 1-2 experiences that demonstrate leadership or initiative in a group or organization. Please do not use examples from high school unless you have completed high school within the past 18 months. Examples could be taken from: employment, community service, student organizations, or similar situations. Explain what you learned about yourself through the experience(s).

How has the educational background of your parents/legal guardians influenced your own education, especially your decision to go to college? What kind of support did you receive in making and pursuing this decision? Please tell us if you are among the first generation in your family to go to college.

Degree Plan (current UW Seattle students only).
All current UW Seattle students applying to the Foster School who meet one or more of the following criteria must submit a degree plan along with the application:

Transcripts. Here is where you’ll be uploading PDFs. You will not be able to submit your application if there is a collegiate institution listed that does not have a matching transcript. Keep the following in mind:

You must submit a separate transcript from each college level institution, even if you took college-level courses in high school or if the courses appear on your UW transcript.

If you have had grade changes, they must be reflected on the transcripts you submit with your application. We will not accept grade changes after the application deadline.

In order for transfer credits to be added to your UW record, you must also request official transcripts be sent to the Office of Admissions.

Convert letter grades to numeric grades using the following chart:

B+

3.3

C+

2.3

D+

1.3

A

4

B

3.0

C

2.0

D

1.0

A-

3.7

B-

2.7

C-

1.7

D-

0.7

Submit and Verify. We ask you to verify that everything you’ve submitted is accurate and honest.

International Transfer

International Transfer applicants: If you have never attended UW as a matriculated student, you must submit two applications—one to the University of Washington and one to the Foster School (see below for application details).

has never attended UW Seattle or has attended UW Seattle only as a non-matriculated undergraduate,

has not been accepted to UW Seattle for the quarter during which the UW Foster School application deadline falls, and

has a total of at least 60 transferable college credits completed by the deadline.

requires an F-1 visa to study in the United States

When applying to the Foster School of Business, application requirements for an international student are the same as for any other student. When applying to the University of Washington, international students must follow the guidelines set out for international students.

Admission to the Foster School is contingent upon admission to the UW, although you may apply to the University and the Foster School simultaneously. UW Admissions operates on a different timeline; deadline dates differ depending on your application status. Don’t miss a deadline.

The UW application closing date for international freshmen and transfer is February 15, for summer or autumn enrollment. This deadline applies to all international applicants, even those who are attending school in the United States.

Timelines and Deadlines

Application Timeline: April 5 deadline (summer/autumn start)
Below is the application timeline for students who want to enroll in the Foster School in summer or autumn quarter.

When

What and Where

January

Register for the Writing Skills Assessment, a required part of the UW Foster application. Assessment sessions begin in January.If you have not already applied to UW Seattle, begin the application process by submitting a UW application and all supporting documents to the UW Office of Admissions. See UW Office of Admissions’ websites for international students for more information.Foster Business scholarship applications will become available.

Transfer applicants will receive electronic decision notifications about the status of their Foster School applications after UW Admissions notifications go out. We will contact you through your UW Email account. Please make sure emails from any bizinfo@uw.edu account do not go to junk mail.

Application Timeline: October 5 deadline (winter quarter start)
International students may apply to the University for autumn quarter only but, once admitted to the University, an international student may apply to the Foster School of Business for winter or for autumn. See “Current/Returning UW Applicants” tab for those deadlines and requirements.

Application Requirements

Minimum Academic Requirements

To be eligible to apply to the Foster School of Business, a student must, at the time of application, have a total of at least 60 college credits from UW and/or other accredited colleges and universities. Students must also have a minimum 2.5 cumulative GPA for:

all college credits, including transfer credits

all business course credits, including transfer credits

all UW credits

all UW business course credits

We only count credits from non-UW institutions that are transferable to UW. The Foster School is not currently accepting post-baccalaureate applications.

Notes on Selected Required Courses

English Composition: For application, one 3-5 credit course must be completed in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States, or taken at an international school where English is the language of instruction.

Introduction to Law (Management 200): This course covers the American legal system; it is not a business law course. An international student who is not able to take a comparable course in the U.S. may take it during his or her quarter of admission to the Foster School of Business.

Completion Deadlines for Prerequisite Courses

The chart below presents a quick picture of the courses required before application and, if admitted, those required before entering the program. Course numbers are for courses offered at UW Seattle, but equivalents will be considered.

Pre-application courses must be completed by the application deadline (April 5 for autumn/summer or October 5 for winter); pre-admission courses must be completed by the last day of spring quarter for autumn admission and by the last day of the autumn quarter for winter admission.

We will accept any UW designated “C” course. The UW does not accept AP credit to satisfy the English Composition requirement, even if your transfer institution did.

If transferring from a college where the fundamentals of accounting are taught in a 3-part series, you must complete the first two courses before the application deadline and the third course by the pre-admission deadline.

Applicants may take either micro- or macroeconomics before applying, but they must complete both by the pre-admission deadline.

If you attend a school where an equivalent course is not taught, contact our office for advice.

We will also accept STAT 311 or any statistics course with a minimum prerequisite of pre-Calculus. Note: STAT 220 no longer accepted for admission unless course was completed prior to winter 2018.

Transfer applicants: Courses taught at the freshman and sophomore levels at other colleges usually cannot be used to satisfy the School’s upper-division business requirements for graduation.

The UW Foster School of Business honors the Associate Degree Agreement for those students who have an approved associate degree from a Washington community college.

Credit Restrictions and UW Residence Requirement
A transfer student is allowed a maximum of 90 transferable community college credit hours toward the 180 credits needed for the UW bachelor’s degree. Up to 90 credit hours of correspondence or other extension coursework may also apply to the bachelor’s degree.

However, every student must complete 45 of the final 60 credit hours in residence at the UW. To meet the upper-division requirement for a BABA, a student must complete six of the nine upper-division core classes(including a capstone course), and 40 of the 53 required upper-division business credit hours at UW Seattle.

Students who have taken more than three of the nine upper-division core business courses at another institution, including UW Bothell and UW Tacoma, are generally not admitted to the UW Foster School of Business. Contact a business adviser if you have questions.

Writing Skills Assessment (WSA)
All applicants to the Foster School must take the Writing Skills Assessment. In the assessment session, students are given 90 minutes to plan and write two essays. One essay is based on a short workplace scenario (the persuasion task) and one is based on an assertion (the position task).

The Writing Skills Assessment must be taken in the United States. We do not allow for international testing.

Online Application

Online Application (Apply Here)

Before you Start
The online application will go live at least two months prior to the application deadline. Here are some things you will need to think about before you start completing the application:

New for Winter 2016. All access to the online application will require UW NetID authentication. Transfer Students: you will be issued UW NetIDs upon completion of your UW Admissions application (it may take as many as two weeks after the UW Admissionsdeadline. Please be sure to read through this page to make sure you have all the required materials prior to the application deadline because you will only have two weeks to access the online application).
*Make sure bizinfo@uw.edu will not get sent to junkmail. All communication will occur via the UW email system. Notifications that you are missing materials or that decisions have been made will be sent to your UW email account, telling you to log back into the online application.

Be aware of the time. The application is due by 11:59 p.m. on April 5 (for summer/autumn start) or October 5 (for winter start). We will not accept applications sent at midnight or later; the system will completely shut you out at exactly 11:59 p.m. Do not wait until the last minute to begin the application. If any application issues arise, you will want to be able to discuss them with someone from the Undergraduate Programs Office.

Have unofficial transcripts ready. The online application will require that you submit PDF copies of your unofficial transcripts from all collegiate institutions you have attended. In most cases, the easiest way to access a PDF version is to print to PDF. In some cases, you may need to get hard copies and scan them as a PDF. This may take extra time. So again, don’t wait until the last minute. Transfer Students: Please wait to submit your transcripts until grades for winter (for April 5 deadline) or spring/ summer (for October 5 deadline) are posted, unless grades post after the deadline.

Think about your personal statement. You only have 1,000 words to address four areas: Hardship, Diversity and Cultural Awareness, Leadership, and Familial Educational Background. The personal statement is your chance to tell us something transcripts and Writing Skills Assessment scores can’t tell us. This is the place on the application to call attention to the things that have impacted your life and your educational journey. Don’t tell us how much you want to be a Foster student; we know you want it. You wouldn’t be applying if you didn’t.

What the Application Looks Like
The online application is divided into the following sections:

Pre-Application Courses. Tell us what you took and your grades for financial accounting, micro or macro economics, calculus, and English composition. See “Application Requirements” above for a list of all courses.

Additional Prerequisites. Let us know what pre-admission courses (managerial accounting, micro or macro economics, introduction to law, and statistics) you have completed or are currently enrolled in. See “Application Requirements” above for a list of all courses.

Collegiate Institutions Attended. You will have to list all colleges/universities attended, including the UW, with the most recent listed first.

Writing Skills Assessment. All you have to do is list the location, date, and whether you’ve taken the WSA previously. We’ll match the rest.

Personal Statement. Your personal statement is an important part of your application for admission. It provides you the opportunity to discuss aspects of your life that may not be apparent from information provided on your application, transcripts or the Writing Skills Assessment. You’ll have four boxes and space for 1,000 total words and will be asked to write about the following topics:

Describe any personal or economic hardships or barriers and explain how they directly affected your ability to be successful in college, as reflected in your transcript. As hardships may occur throughout your life, be specific about when you encountered these hardships and how long they lasted.

In the context of your life experience, describe your understanding of cultural differences and how this awareness was acquired. Talk about how your experiences influenced the person you are and what you will bring to the Foster School community (i.e. classroom, extracurricular, future career, etc.). You define what “experience” means to you; if it is important to you, it is important to share.

Describe 1-2 experiences that demonstrate leadership or initiative in a group or organization. Please do not use examples from high school unless you have completed high school within the past 18 months. Examples could be taken from: employment, community service, student organizations, or similar situations. Explain what you learned about yourself through the experience(s).

How has the educational background of your parents/legal guardians influenced your own education, especially your decision to go to college? What kind of support did you receive in making and pursuing this decision? Please tell us if you are among the first generation in your family to go to college.

Degree Plan (current UW Seattle students only).
All current UW Seattle students applying to the Foster School who meet one or more of the following criteria must submit a degree plan along with the application:

Transcripts. Here is where you’ll be uploading PDFs. You will not be able to submit your application if there is a collegiate institution listed that does not have a matching transcript. Keep the following in mind:

You must submit a separate transcript from each college level institution, even if you took college-level courses in high school or if the courses appear on your UW transcript.

If you have had grade changes, they must be reflected on the transcripts you submit with your application. We will not accept grade changes after the application deadline.

In order for transfer credits to be added to your UW record, you must also request official transcripts be sent to the Office of Admissions.

Convert letter grades to numeric grades using the following chart:

B+

3.3

C+

2.3

D+

1.3

A

4

B

3.0

C

2.0

D

1.0

A-

3.7

B-

2.7

C-

1.7

D-

0.7

Submit and Verify. We ask you to verify that everything you’ve submitted is accurate and honest.

Running Start/Dual Credit Freshmen

Freshman (Running Start, Dual Credit, or College in the High School) applicants: If you have never attended UW as a matriculated student, you must submit two applications—one to the University of Washington and one to the Foster School (see below for application details).

has never attended UW Seattle or has attended UW Seattle only as a non-matriculated undergraduate,

has not been accepted to UW Seattle for the quarter during which the UW Foster School application deadline falls, and

has only completed college/university coursework to fulfill high school graduation requirements

Admission to the Foster School is contingent upon admission to the UW, although you may apply to the University and the Foster School simultaneously. UW Admissions operates on a different timeline; deadline dates differ depending on your application status. Don’t miss a deadline. High school seniors interested in applying directly to the Foster School should review our Freshmen Direct program.

Timelines and Deadlines

Application Timeline: April 5 deadline (summer/autumn start)
Below is the application timeline for students who want to enroll in the Foster School in summer or autumn quarter.

If you are applying for a need-based business scholarship, you must submit a FAFSA application. For priority consideration, your FAFSA should be sent by February 15 and must be dated as received by the federal processor by February 28.

March

Attend an application workshop. Application workshops present detailed information about the application process, including the Writing Skills Assessment, to students who plan to apply to the Foster School of Business.

Deadline to apply for Foster scholarships. At this time, high school students applying via Standard Admission cannot apply for both scholarships. We recommend applying for the Freshman Direct scholarship, and if not admitted via Freshman Direct, please email bscholar@uw.edu to notify us that you would like to be considered for the General Foster Undergraduate Scholarships.

May

Freshman applicants (other than Freshman Direct) will receive electronic decision notifications about the status of their Foster School applications in the first week of May. However, decisions will likely come after the May 1, deadline to commit to the University of Washington. We will contact you through your UW Email account. Please make sure emails from any bizinfo@uw.edu account do not go to junk mail.

Application Requirements

Minimum Academic Requirements

To be eligible to apply to the Foster School of Business, a student must, at the time of application, have a total of at least 60 college credits from UW and/or other accredited colleges and universities. Students must also have a minimum 2.5 cumulative GPA for:

all college credits, including transfer credits

all business course credits, including transfer credits

all UW credits

all UW business course credits

We only count credits from non-UW institutions that are transferable to UW. The Foster School is not currently accepting post-baccalaureate applications.

Completion Deadlines for Prerequisite Courses

The chart below presents a quick picture of the courses required before application and, if admitted, those required before entering the program. Course numbers are for courses offered at UW Seattle, but equivalents will be considered.

Pre-application courses must be completed by the application deadline (April 5 for autumn/summer or October 5 for winter); pre-admission courses must be completed by the last day of spring quarter for autumn admission and by the last day of the autumn quarter for winter admission.

We will accept any UW designated “C” course. The UW does not accept AP credit to satisfy the English Composition requirement, even if your transfer institution did.

If transferring from a college where the fundamentals of accounting are taught in a 3-part series, you must complete the first two courses before the application deadline and the third course by the pre-admission deadline.

Applicants may take either micro- or macroeconomics before applying, but they must complete both by the pre-admission deadline.

If you attend a school where an equivalent course is not taught, contact our office for advice.

We will also accept STAT 311 or any statistics course with a minimum prerequisite of pre-Calculus. Note: STAT 220 no longer accepted for admission unless course was completed prior to winter 2018.

Courses taught at the freshman and sophomore levels at other colleges usually cannot be used to satisfy the School’s upper-division business requirements for graduation.

The UW Foster School of Business honors the Associate Degree Agreement for those students who have an approved associate degree from a Washington community college.

Credit Restrictions and UW Residence Requirement
A transfer student is allowed a maximum of 90 transferable community college credit hours toward the 180 credits needed for the UW bachelor’s degree. Up to 90 credit hours of correspondence or other extension coursework may also apply to the bachelor’s degree.

However, every student must complete 45 of the final 60 credit hours in residence at the UW. To meet the upper-division requirement for a BABA, a student must complete six of the nine upper-division core classes (including a capstone course), and 40 of the 53 required upper-division business credit hours at UW Seattle.

Students who have taken more than three of the nine upper-division core business courses at another institution, including UW Bothell and UW Tacoma, are generally not admitted to the UW Foster School of Business. Contact a business adviser if you have questions.

Writing Skills Assessment (WSA)
All applicants to the Foster School must take the Writing Skills Assessment. In the assessment session, students are given 90 minutes to plan and write two essays. One essay is based on a short workplace scenario (the persuasion task) and one is based on an assertion (the position task).

Before you Start
The online application will go live at least two months prior to the application deadline. Here are some things you will need to think about before you start completing the application:

New for Winter 2016. All access to the online application will require UW NetID authentication. Transfer Students: you will be issued UW NetIDs upon completion of your UW Admissions application (it may take as many as two weeks after the UW Admissionsdeadline. Please be sure to read through this page to make sure you have all the required materials prior to the application deadline because you will only have two weeks to access the online application).
*Make sure bizinfo@uw.edu will not get sent to junkmail. All communication will occur via the UW email system. Notifications that you are missing materials or that decisions have been made will be sent to your UW email account, telling you to log back into the online application.

Be aware of the time. The application is due by 11:59 p.m. on April 5 (for summer/autumn start) or October 5 (for winter start). We will not accept applications sent at midnight or later; the system will completely shut you out at exactly 11:59 p.m. Do not wait until the last minute to begin the application. If any application issues arise, you will want to be able to discuss them with someone from the Undergraduate Programs Office.

Have unofficial transcripts ready. The online application will require that you submit PDF copies of your unofficial transcripts from all collegiate institutions you have attended. In most cases, the easiest way to access a PDF version is to print to PDF. In some cases, you may need to get hard copies and scan them as a PDF. This may take extra time. So again, don’t wait until the last minute. Transfer Students: Please wait to submit your transcripts until grades for winter (for April 5 deadline) or spring/ summer (for October 5 deadline) are posted, unless grades post after the deadline.

Think about your personal statement. You only have 1,000 words to address four areas: Hardship, Diversity and Cultural Awareness, Leadership, and Familial Educational Background. The personal statement is your chance to tell us something transcripts and Writing Skills Assessment scores can’t tell us. This is the place on the application to call attention to the things that have impacted your life and your educational journey. Don’t tell us how much you want to be a Foster student; we know you want it. You wouldn’t be applying if you didn’t.

What the Application Looks Like
The online application is divided into the following sections:

Pre-Application Courses. Tell us what you took and your grades for financial accounting, micro or macro economics, calculus, and English composition. See “Application Requirements” above for a list of all courses.

Additional Prerequisites. Let us know what pre-admission courses (managerial accounting, micro or macro economics, introduction to law, and statistics) you have completed or are currently enrolled in. See “Application Requirements” above for a list of all courses.

Collegiate Institutions Attended. You will have to list all colleges/universities attended, including the UW, with the most recent listed first.

Writing Skills Assessment. All you have to do is list the location, date, and whether you’ve taken the WSA previously. We’ll match the rest.

Personal Statement. Your personal statement is an important part of your application for admission. It provides you the opportunity to discuss aspects of your life that may not be apparent from information provided on your application, transcripts or the Writing Skills Assessment. You’ll have four boxes and space for 1,000 total words and will be asked to write about the following topics:

Describe any personal or economic hardships or barriers and explain how they directly affected your ability to be successful in college, as reflected in your transcript. As hardships may occur throughout your life, be specific about when you encountered these hardships and how long they lasted.

In the context of your life experience, describe your understanding of cultural differences and how this awareness was acquired. Talk about how your experiences influenced the person you are and what you will bring to the Foster School community (i.e. classroom, extracurricular, future career, etc.). You define what “experience” means to you; if it is important to you, it is important to share.

Describe 1-2 experiences that demonstrate leadership or initiative in a group or organization. Please do not use examples from high school unless you have completed high school within the past 18 months. Examples could be taken from: employment, community service, student organizations, or similar situations. Explain what you learned about yourself through the experience(s).

How has the educational background of your parents/legal guardians influenced your own education, especially your decision to go to college? What kind of support did you receive in making and pursuing this decision? Please tell us if you are among the first generation in your family to go to college.

Degree Plan (current UW Seattle students only).
All current UW Seattle students applying to the Foster School who meet one or more of the following criteria must submit a degree plan along with the application:

Transcripts. Here is where you’ll be uploading PDFs. You will not be able to submit your application if there is a collegiate institution listed that does not have a matching transcript. Keep the following in mind:

You must submit a separate transcript from each college level institution, even if you took college-level courses in high school or if the courses appear on your UW transcript.

If you have had grade changes, they must be reflected on the transcripts you submit with your application. We will not accept grade changes after the application deadline.

In order for transfer credits to be added to your UW record, you must also request official transcripts be sent to the Office of Admissions.

Convert letter grades to numeric grades using the following chart:

B+

3.3

C+

2.3

D+

1.3

A

4

B

3.0

C

2.0

D

1.0

A-

3.7

B-

2.7

C-

1.7

D-

0.7

Submit and Verify. We ask you to verify that everything you’ve submitted is accurate and honest.

Post Baccalaureate

Post Baccalaureate applicants: If you already have an undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Art or Bachelor of Science), we are not accepting applications to the Foster School of Business’ undergraduate degree program.

If you are interested in advanced study at the Foster School of Business, please check out our Master Degree programs: